Dicotyledon

Myrtaceae -- The Myrtle Family

Syzygium

General Information
	Distribution	A genus of about 1,120 species from the Old World tropics.
	Habit	Shrubs or trees, usually glabrous or sometimes with multicellular hairs.
	Leaves	Leaves opposite or rarely ternate, petiolate; blade chartaceous to coriaceous, pinnately veined, usually with a submarginal vein, glandular punctate.
	Flowers	Inflorescences 1‒3-flowered or flowers numerous in terminal, axillary, or cauliflorous, usually paniculate, umbellate, racemose, or cymose inflorescences; bracts and bracteoles caducous. Flowers with hypanthium usually tapering to a pseudopedicel, apex extended beyond ovary into a rim; sepals (3)4‒5(6), distinct, borne on the hypanthium rim; petals (3)4‒5(6), borne on the hypanthium rim, often obovate, usually glandular dotted, distinct and spreading or coherent and forming a calyptra; nectary disc on distal surface of hypanthium, thin or cushionlike; stamens numerous in 1 to several series, borne on inner surface or margin of hypanthium rim, usually strongly incurved in bud, filaments distinct or connate into bundles; ovary inferior, 2(‒4)-locular, ovules numerous, spreading from placenta.
	Fruit	Fruit a berry, subglobose, ellipsoid, pear-shaped, or subcylindrical, pericarp thick and fleshy, leathery, or brittle.
	Seeds	Seeds 1(‒6), seed coat loosely coherent to pericarp, cotyledon faces distinct, intercotyledonary inclusion absent.
	Notes	The name is derived from the Greek prefix syn- or sys-, together, and the Greek zygon, yolked, in reference to the coherent petals that form a calyptra in some species.
	Contributor	Nancy Khan